burthen
English
Pronunciation
- Rhymes: -ɜː(r)ðən
Noun
burthen (plural burthens)
- (obsolete, nautical) The tonnage of a ship based on the number of tuns of wine that it could carry in its holds.
- Archaic spelling of burden.
- 1798, William Wordsworth, Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey, lines 36-43:
- Nor less, I trust,
- To them I may have owed another gift,
- Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood,
- In which the burthen of the mystery,
- In which the heavy and the weary weight
- Of all this unintelligible world,
- Is lightened:
- 1817, Jane Austen, Persuasion:
- It was with a daughter of Mr Shepherd, who had returned, after an unprosperous marriage, to her father's house, with the additional burthen of two children.
- c. 1860 Dante Gabriel Rossetti, The Husbandsmen, lines 4, 6-7:
- Bidding them grope their way out and bestir,
- (...) though the worst
- Burthen of heat was theirs and the dry thirst
- 1848, John Stuart Mill - Principles of Political Economy, vol. 1, p. 113.
- 1798, William Wordsworth, Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey, lines 36-43:
Verb
burthen (third-person singular simple present burthens, present participle burthening, simple past and past participle burthened)
- Archaic spelling of burden.
- 1883, Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island:
- The other men were variously burthened; some carrying picks and shovels - for that had been the very first necessary they brought ashore from the Hispaniola - others laden with pork, bread, and brandy for the midday meal.